


Conspiracy 5.01

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Genre: Warning! This is for me, and my sense of humour does not suit everyone; Be warned!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mozzie, through COMPLETELY no fault of his own, discovers a conspiracy.</p><p>WC cast belongs to someone else - Jeff Eastin, their creator (thank you!) USA, Fox, whoever - NOT me. All characters including OC are completely fictional, as is the story. No similarities to real life people or situations is intended or should be inferred.</p><p>No animals or sharks were harmed during the making of this fiction.</p><p>Takes place in late first season, at a guess, but no spoilers if you've watched any WC!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conspiracy 5.01

 

 

 

 

Neal put down an FBI case file he’d been reading. There really was nothing there. Like the previous twenty-eight! He found himself rubbing his ankle under the plastic tracking device, again, and grimaced. The skin was often rough there. Some days he was fine with it, didn’t notice it at all. And then there were days like today…

 

He sighed and looked out over Manhattan. He got up and walked to the edge and leaned on the parapet and looked, trying to lose himself in the view, the space. It was worth it, being at the beck-and-call of the very man who had put him inside, locked him away from all this. It was!

 

_It just doesn’t feel like it today!_

Because today, it felt like a trade-off between this…a beautiful city he could observe, always with someone at the end of his leash ready to jerk him off his feet…and Paris. Or Vienna, London, Bonne, a little village in Ireland, a ski-lodge in Switzerland, a tiny island Somewhere. A museum, a gallery, all the fountains of Italy.

_I wanted it all and now I’m a staked goat to lure villains._

 

_Come on, this isn’t healthy. It’s not all bad. Come on, it isn’t! Count blessings! I have June and I get to see Mozzie. Where is Mozzie…?_

At that moment, Mozzie appeared. He was carrying a sheaf of papers and his eyes were just a little wild.

 

_That’s all I need today! Thanks, God!_

“Neal!”

 

“Yeah, what is it Moz?”

 

“Come inside. Shut the doors.”

_Uh-oh._

Neal complied. He didn’t look it, but he was sighing inside. Deeply.

 

_Trade-offs…mortgage fraud…conspiracy theories…mortgage fraud…conspiracy theories…? Or is it ‘put up with Burke crap’ or ‘put up with Moz crap’? Okay, God, yagotme! Horns of a dilemma._

Mozzie got a bottle of wine and did the necessary while Neal leaned over the papers he’d strewn on the table.

 

“Sit, sit!” insisted his (slightly) shorter friend. “I know you don’t like me coming to you with this stuff, but I haven’t – no, don’t give me that raised-eyebrow are-you-kidding-me look, Neal! I haven’t for six months! Well…more than five! But I’ve run every statistical analysis known to man and a few others I’ve invented for this scenario and there’s something odd here. It started more than a year ago. But they’ve ramped it up.”

 

“What’s this? A victim, a suspect?” Neal, the visual, ignored what looked to him like a trillion neatly written numbers and picked up some head-shots of a good-looking middle-aged man, dark hair and eyes, nice smile. “Oh – wait – isn’t this – no, his nose isn’t right.”

 

 _“Exactly!”_ Mozzie nodded. Neal took a tee-totaller’s ‘I need to self-medicate’ swig of the wine, nearly (but not quite) causing Mozzie to lose his train of thought.

 

“Exactly…?...come on, Moz. Let’s try and make this succinct?”

 

“There’s this TV show…”

 

“Don’t watch.”

 

“Yes, neither do I. Well – I did start, but I saw the strange pattern first.”

 

“Wheat fields?”

 

“You are just – look, if you don’t want to listen, just say so. I know you’ve often harboured the idea that I’m some crazy conspiracy fool. But I notice that when you need my brains or my expertise to solve a case and keep you out of jail and keep that – that – _Suit_ you’re engaged to happy, then my brains are just fine for you! Make up your mind, okay?”

 

Neal pulled himself up and sat opposite Mozzie. “No, Moz. I’m sorry. Look, when you first told me about the moon landing and JFK and – and – fluoride in toothpaste and the fake money and the Federal Reserve… I was sceptical, you know? Heck, I was a kid with no life experience and I thought I was way out there because I never registered as a tax-payer and made a living stealing the cash in wallets. But of course you aren’t a fool. The official stories are full of holes, I grant you. I don’t know what the truth is, and it’s good you try to find evidence and keep your – and my – mind open.

         “I don’t know how many of your theories are right. I just know I’m glad someone keeps looking! Someone I trust.”

 

“Truly, Neal?”

 

“Truly, Moz. I am sorry. I am feeling – tethered today. A tethered goat. Sacrificial lamb.”

 

Mozzie’s eyes softened. He said, “I’ll look into that, too…after all, people convicted of a crime do not lose all their rights. Who gets to choose which you lose? How is it that everyone calls King Jr. a hero and lauds the changes, but here you are, a slave to the FBI – no pay for your very hard and valuable work. Not even danger pay! One thing to lock you up as revenge for your brilliance, another to force you to work for no pay…hmm…it’s not like you willingly joined the military and became government property forever….”

 

“Okay, Johnnie Cochran,” Neal chuckled. “One important case at a time! – and I did agree to this – thing!” He leaned down and tapped the plastic.

 

“I think that could be construed to be a contract agreed to under duress..? And certainly not full disclosure! Therefore illegal?”

 

“Yeah – you’re right! – But you’ve been working on something here…tell me. We’ll work on my defence some other time!”

 

“It’s a deal! Okay, at first it was nothing. Just some odd reviews I noticed online.”

 

“Reviews?”

 

“Yeah, you know – there’d be an article about this TV show and the comments would be all over the place.”

 

“You are wanting me to be seriously concerned about a TV show and the ratings…?”

 

“No. Not at all. I mean, lots of people like a show, lots of other people hate it…some people comment about the stars’ trailers being too big or too small, or their noses - don’t like who they’re married to – lots of nut-jobs out there, Neal!”

 

“I believe you.”

 

Mozzie studied Neal’s face but found not a trace of wry humour, so he went on. “I just happened to notice that these seemed wrong.”

 

“Wrong.”

 

“Okay – here. I rated the comments on all the websites, all the articles I could find to do with the show. Here. This is Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4.”

 

“Okay…” Neal studied the plethora of figures and graphs. He could understand this stuff if he could work up some interest!

 

“Well, the show is well-thought of, in general. Some people on the first season say they hate it, most who bother to comment like it…right? As you would expect.”

 

“You rated the comments on a scale from -2 thru 0 to +2. Season 1 mostly very positive, about a third negative?”

 

“Yeah. Normal. These aren’t great literary critics, or cinematic technique experts…these are just the butts in the seats that keep the advertisers buying time. A third of them fall in love with the main characters, about a tenth of those can’t seem to tell where the character starts and the actor finishes…stalker material, seriously.”

 

“Yes, but isn’t that …?”

 

“Oh, quite normal, for the wilder viewing audience. The distribution of comments changes from season to season…”

 

“I see,” Neal looked impressed. “They developed quite a following. People liked them.”

 

“Not as much as the numbers show – it’s just that fans look for articles and take the chance to comment, of course positively. The people who hate the show are watching Football or Mork and Mindy reruns or something else – still get some people with enough time or general dissatisfaction about life or something to see an article about a show they hate and make a comment, also normal. Often word-for-word repeats. Crazy, but normal.”

 

“You seem to be quite an expert.” Neal looked worried.

 

“Of course I’m an expert! I don’t talk about something I haven’t studied! I ran the numbers on twenty-five other shows that ran for the same number of years, some over-lapping, some ending as this one started.”

 

“Oh!”

 

“Yes! Normal. Then everything changed. Now there’s always a blip or a flip if characters leave a show. I’m sure it happened when they switched Darrins or Gladys’ on Bewitched, I just didn’t go that far back, the society has changed and there was no internet, but I’m sure the networks got letters!

         “But with social media, it’s far more immediate and easy for almost anyone who feels anything about anything to make their voice heard!”

 

“Okay, so some character died or left?”

 

“No-one died or left. It’s a very stable cast. Everyone loves them all, their contracts must be iron-clad, they’re making a packet, they’re enjoying themselves or whatever makes an actor show up every day to do what must be an awful job. Enough cameras to duck on any given street!

.......“But that’s the thing. Suddenly, in the fifth season, everything changes.”

 

Neal was beginning to wonder if Mozzie+mortgage fraud+anklet+handler wasn’t reaching the tipping point and if prison was such a bad deal – after all, he had _escaped._ He should be allowed the peace and quiet of a small, _quiet_ , solitary cell. What does a criminal have to _do…?_

 

Mozzie, now in full flood, carried on, “After that, none of the social media or comments make sense. All the numbers go completely off the wall!”

 

“This _is_ about the regular viewers of _television_ , Moz, isn’t it?”

 

Mozzie scowled. “Look, Mr FBI-asset-Caffrey, if you were looking at some young dude and he suddenly, without changing his job at MacDonald’s flipping burgers, bought a new car and started wearing $3000 suits and taking vacations and dating daughters of millionaires, when he did none of those things before…wouldn’t you think there was something fishy going on? Wouldn’t you want to look at his financials?”

 

Neal grinned. “Peter would want to look at his financials! I’d want to find the guy and ask him what he’s doing that’s working so well!”

 

“Yeah – okay!” Mozzie grinned back. “Glad you’re still not dragged by that tether into the dark side, mon frère – but you see what I mean? Something’s changed. He’s inherited money, he’s selling drugs, he’s skimming the books, something! And he’s an idiot, but we can take that as read. He works at MacDonald’s. Just the air is probably unhealthy.”

 

“They do have salads now.” Neal leaned forward and looked at the graphs and pie-charts, hundreds of them! “Something changed without something seeming to change?”

 

“Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t that there was another better show and this one gradually lost fans – there were even more comments, but the comments split – many still positive, but many absolutely negative. I mean absolutely. The fans were arguing with each other! Vehemently! Violently, even - real vitriol in many cases!”

 

“Why?”

 

“I dunno. I thought of all the usual things one thinks of – perhaps they brought in an ongoing guest who was black and there were a whole lot of racists watching – though it seems an extreme reaction. Perhaps five or ten percent, not more than that, and usually a whole lot less for a black actor, at least in this age! I tried every angle I could try…at last I downloaded the series.”

 

“You – downloaded and watched a TV series…?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You watched a whole TV series.”

 

“Yeah – well, I got a little interested right at first because it was about two crooks and the FBI, sort of like us.”

 

“Better than Tiles of Fire?”

 

“Now don’t be mean! I know you don’t appreciate the humour…”

 

“Or anything else about them…”

 

“I watched. I could not see a sudden divergence from the show’s premise, the characters were the same – in fact, for my money, too much the same, they needed some character development, there was some added level of antagonism between the two main male leads, nothing to elicit the response they were getting.

         “In fact, now I started to actually read the negative responses, and they seemed even more outrageous.”

 

Neal was wondering if he could get Peter to call him. Tell him there was a dead body, a missing van Gogh, the Met was on fire…?

 

“So I downloaded it from another site.”

 

“You downloaded the series again?”

 

“I did. Now you’re wondering how I could do that, with big brother watching every key-stroke. But I have my ways. There are many little old ladies and gentlemen who never use their computers for more than the odd email or watching kitten videos ...though some of them do manage to find the pornadoes, you’d be surprised about our grandparents’ generation! But other than that, their computers lie idle.”

 

“You break in and steal internet access? From little old ladies? Why am I not surprised?”

 

“It’s paid for, Neal. Usually by their grandchildren or great grandchildren who want their oupa or ouma to be able to stay in contact without having to actually make contact, it’s the curse of modern cocooning…I digress. But seriously, you can’t call it anything worse than _sharing_ , Neal!”

 

Neal shook his head and grinned fondly.

 

Mozzie noticed and said, “I am doing them a favour! I update their anti-malware and -virus programmes, keep them current on all the latest versions of the software, and never leave a footprint. Come on! I can’t exactly go out and get high-speed internet and put myself at risk merely to illegally download a TV series!”

 

“No, I guess not. So what did you find? There’s a gay actor on there that suddenly came out?”

 

“Yeah, earlier. No blips or flips there. I thought perhaps I’d missed some racist _remarks_ by a producer or something, somebody saying they enjoy hunting and killing baby seals – that sort of thing can really put a crimp in things! But you aren’t letting me tell you…the second time I downloaded it, it was different.”

 

“Worse quality? You need to check that before - ”

 

“What I am saying is that, according to my analysis, and my observation, two different versions of the fifth season were broadcast – or whatever you call it now that it isn’t broadcast at all!”

 

Neal sat forward again. “What? That’s insane!”

 

Mozzie sat back. “That is what I’m telling you!”

 

“Are you sure – okay, okay, you’re sure.”

 

“I’ve watched them twice. I am more intelligent than most, Neal – some of each episode is the same, some is not, in the fifth season. The one character changes, devolves into this mean, angry brute.”

 

“In one version.”

 

“Yes. In the other, he’s the same, a little stupid – he’s a Suit, so it’s well-written, he’s in character, he’s always suspicious, but basically a nice guy who has, by the sad roads down which life on this cursed world can wend, ended up being an FBI agent.”

 

“But that must cost money and expertise and _why –_ and what about the actors? Don’t they wonder?”

 

“Don’t know. Never been an actor. Probably do multiple takes and just wonder at the ratings drop. Or - they can create computer generated actors, now - like Ben Cartwright...um, Lorne Green...making a guest appearance on Quantum Leap when he was dead. Wonder what the legal ramifications are? Is an actor's face copy-righted? Who gets paid? But it is possible, perhaps that's how this was done.

......."Anyway, the ratings dropped, and some of the comments towards the end are rabidly militant. People liked the character and the interaction before and those people hate this – the ones who saw the Decent into Madness version.”

 

“Look, people don’t do things for many reasons. Love, revenge, money – pretty well sums it up.”

 

“You forgot the moon landing… _control.”_

 

“Yeah. I forgot. Moon landing. Sorry.”

 

“I tried to discover if the actor, the one who is being butchered on the show slept with the producer – or someone powerful – and then abandoned the relationship. Or wouldn’t engage at all.”

 

“Producer a woman?”

 

“No. Man. Doesn’t look gay, that’s for sure.”

 

“You can tell, can you?”

 

“If you saw his photo, you’d doubt it, too…and you’d doubt that guy would sleep with him.”

 

“The actor – what’s his name? – he’s gay?”

 

“No, wife and kids, seems contentedly hetero, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t arouse the…passions of a lonely producer, does it?”

 

“From the small number of Hollywood rumours I cannot avoid hearing, I would think that if that was the reason all this was happening, no TV show would make sense from one week to another!”

 

“Can you ask the Suit?”

 

Neal, in the process of getting up, froze and looked over. “Ask Peter what?”

 

“About the show.”

 

“Tell Peter I’m worried that there are fans being driven to the edge of suicide by – by – crazy writing? Crazy something? I can’t do that!”

 

“Suicide or homicide! If you’d read some of those comments…!”

 

“You haven’t a motive! Or even – anything. It makes no sense. Perhaps it’s like those books they used to write where you could choose the ending you wanted? Have you thought of that?”

 

“Then there’d be a competition, an announcement – ‘You, too, could win a dinner with the stars of this, your favourite show! Just send us all your personal details which we of _course_ won’t share with _anybody_ , and tell us why you like the show and which ending you preferred and why’,” Mozzie snorted, then went on, “The Suit should care – it’s an FBI agent who is being gutted in the eyes of the public…well, half the public.”

 

“Trust me, Peter will _not_ care. If it was some football player’s reputation, now – or baseball. Some soap on TV? Never!”

 

“It’s not a soap. They call it a dramedy.”

 

“Oh, I’ll tell the FBI immediately! A dramedy! Oh, that’s entirely different! That’ll make them care!”

 

“Don’t be snarky.”

 

“I’m sorry, Moz, I wouldn’t know where to start!”

 

“It’s something insidious. Malicious. _Ominous.”_

 

Neal wanted very much to laugh, but would never hurt Mozzie’s feelings.

 

“It could be, Moz. I would think the worst thing you could say is that they’re trying to make people wonder about the integrity of FBI agents – and I’d think you’d think that would be a good thing!          .......“Perhaps – perhaps if you could prove which areas of the country got which version?”

 

“It’s not that simple. It’s smaller segments! It’s not like Texas got the good-suit version and California got the bad.”

 

“ _Can_ you identify who got what? Or which? It might point to what is going on.”

 

“I’ll try.” Mozzie went quiet, looking inward, thinking.

 

“Thank you for bringing me this. I can’t understand the importance of it, but if it’s there, you’ll find it, Moz.”

 

Neal grabbed his jacket and went for a walk to clear his head.

 

 

 

Mozzie went back to whatever storage container he was living in, and Neal’s life returned to what passed for normal to a young, handsome, bored criminal with a tracking anklet and no social interactions other than work. He kept an eye on the papers, but there were no reports of grandmothers defending their homes with umbrellas or grandfathers shooting intruders they’d found using their tablets – of any description or prescription - so he assumed Mozzie was safe.

 

He and Peter became embroiled in a fraud involving a man who bred racing dogs and the veterinary assistant who loved him, and it was all a little sad. Neal asked if he could find homes for the displaced dogs and Peter looked at him as though he was crazy.

 

_Oh, yeah, he’s going to worry about people who stopped liking Bluebloods, or whatever. Mozzie’s so lucky I didn’t take his theory to the FBI. Peter has already shown interest in ordering a psychiatric assessment for him on occasion!_

Then Mozzie was back.

 

“How’s things?” Neal asked. After all, very often Moz would have moved on, wandered through several conspiracies, or the planning of several heists, and would hardly remember what Neal was talking about if he brought up their previous discussion.

 

“It’s big, Neal.”

_Vain hope!_

 

“What, Moz?” But Neal’s heart sank gently, like a mortally damaged submarine, clunking on the bottom with a morose thud.

 

“Well, it’s really hard to discover who got sent which version, especially six months after the episodes aired, you’d be surprised!”

 

“Probably not. I did wonder – which version got out on DVD, Blu-Ray, that stuff?”

 

“Just the bad ones.”

 

“Oh!”

 

“But there’s more…you know about subliminal advertising?”

 

“Mozzie! Our criminal success often depends on subliminal advertising!”

 

Mozzie grinned. “I mean the kind on TV, like those Benson and Hedges cigarette adverts of the sixties or seventies that were banned.”

 

“Flashing images.”

 

“Yeah, too fast for the eye to see, three times ten to the negative power three of a second every five seconds - but the brain picks them up, responds to them in some fashion. Obvious bumps in sales. But that’s harder to do now, on TV shows, anyway! I’m never quite sure and always check You Tubes and commercial CD’s and DVD’s. Can’t be too careful!

.......“Well, there are images in some of the shots…I can show you…on the ones where we’re supposed to like the suit, there are images of naked women and men and champagne glasses and big cars. On the ones we aren’t, skulls and other nasty stuff.

         “This is much harder to stop because it is subjective – and subtle. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed. An ad for a car has a girl on the car in the ad, but the shadow on the side suggests a female breast, for example. That’s a simple and fairly innocuous example. Some are truly…horrible. I’ve done thousands of captures and they’re everywhere on this season – none before. I can show you. They pass unnoticed to the average eye at normal speed - even in a capture. They merely inject feelings of disgust, antipathy, anger if you don't study the stills...and even then it can take a while to see them. They're designed not to be noticed consciously. Once you have seen them…”

 

“Like 911 and the moon landing?”

 

_“Exactly!”_

 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

 

“And – I’ve discovered another set of anomalous and suddenly divergent opinions. And this is where the ‘ominous’ comes in.”

 

“You’re serious?”

 

“Yeah. Very. I insist we call in the Suit.”

 

“You’re insisting we speak to Peter.”

 

“Yes, Neal.”

 

“You – an FBI agent?”

 

“Neal…!”

 

“FBI Special Agent Burke, Peter?”

 

Mozzie just gave him a look. Neal picked up his phone. Mozzie had either gone totally and completely crazy (in which case he might need Peter’s help and upper body strength!), or he was right – it was serious!

 

 

By the time Peter got to Neal’s studio, Moz, wearing white gloves, had set up something of a visual aid display. He’d commandeered all of Neal’s easels and straight-backed chairs, and set graphs and pictures, some of them covered for best effect at the reveal! He wanted it to be as simple for Peter to grasp as possible.

 

_Government employees and all!_

Peter pushed open the door and saw Mozzie, and his face showed one of those strange emotions Neal found hard to identify, other than to say that Peter wasn’t thrilled that Neal’s best friend was visiting.

 

“Come in, Peter. Mozzie may have found a case for us.”

 

“A case. For us. Mozzie.”

 

Mozzie didn’t look at Burke, but waved a finger. “Lucky I noticed this, Suit. You certainly would never have picked up all the clues. I shall lay them out for you like the footsteps of Sasquatch, leading right to the beast.

.......“However, not to be unfair, it seems that Bigfoot is a gentle giant, with no harmful intent, and even the few recorded Yeti attacks have been more in the nature of self-defence against excessive noise and light activity – if they are related, which seems likely. Not the same thing can be said of my discovery.”

 

Peter gave Neal an ‘I have no idea what he just said, help, please help’ look, and Neal shook his head and said, “Why don’t you sit, Peter. This may take a while.”

 

“I don’t have a while to hunt Sasquatches through the forests of Manhattan!” Peter protested.

 

“You’ll be sorry if you leave,” Mozzie said, warningly. “But it’s your precious law and order on the line, after all. I have solved this for my own amusement, I shall now pack up and move on to other, more lucrative pursuits, if you’ll excuse the pun!” Mozzie grinned at his own joke.

 

“Give him a chance, Peter!” Neal suggested. Then whispered, “He’s really worried about something.”

 

Peter sat, scowling a little.

 

Mozzie started on the TV series, but, at Neal’s suggestion, tried to keep that short. Shortening the story did not help Peter understand it, however, and his forehead was as creased as an annoyed shar pei puppy’s before Neal tried to summarize. Then he just got exasperated. “You are telling me this is some conspiracy theory about a TV show and how they swopped Darrins on Bewitched? Seriously?”

 

“How you put up with their in-the-box thinking, Neal!” Mozzie frowned. “They’re so in-the-box and buried, they might as well be dead.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Try to follow, Peter. Mozzie explained it as if a burger-flipper started living above his means without an explanation, well, you’d want one! This is the same.”

 

Using graphs and speaking slowly (which made Peter take out his gun and flip off the safety, which in turn made Mozzie snort in disdain and continue, just as slowly if not more so), Mozzie explained the problem with the TV series, all the way through to the subliminal images.

 

“I can’t see that it’s criminal – but I’m sure if there’s an FBI agent in it, the way the procedural stuff is shown is a crime, or should be…” Peter started.

 

“This,” Mozzie said, “is the actor who is being vilified by the bad-agent variant of the show.”

 

He showed Peter the photograph he’d shown Neal near the beginning of the quest. Peter took it. He frowned a little more, as though trying to remember him. It had the actor’s name across the bottom and the name of his character.

 

“Nice looking, one might even call him handsome in an all-American kind of way. But he must have known they could write him any way they liked, surely. Isn’t that the way it works?”

 

“Firstly, Peter, it is unusual to change the perception of the audience when it comes to one of the heroes of the show,” Neal tried to support Mozzie. “Especially if it isn’t a large cast of heroes. I’ve been reading up on it. If a hero-type changes drastically, and it isn’t a common trope – a common ploy in the plot – he’s got to have some good reason, he has to be redeemed – within an episode or two! This was getting worse all season.”

 

“But these are not real people, Neal, Mozzie!” Peter said, standing up and going to the sink to see if perhaps they’d been drinking methanol rather than ethanol!

 

“Suit!” Mozzie ordered. “Come here! Sit!”

 

Peter found himself sitting, a look of surprise on his face.

 

“This is an actor, poor mutt!” Mozzie said, pointing. “But this,” and he pulled out another photograph, “isn’t.”

 

“ _That’s_ who he reminds me of!” Neal nodded, suddenly getting excited.

 

“I think this is a trial run, a dry run – but it’s working!” Mozzie told them. “This is not the actor, this is - ”

 

“Cameron Stone!” Peter exclaimed, suddenly involved. “The politician!”

 

“Exactly. Kind of a look-alike, yes?”

 

“But – but - ”

 

“Stone is an Independent,” Mozzie went on. “Interesting man. Doesn’t fit into any category. He calls himself a fundamentalist Christian who likes to put the fun back into fundamentalist – he says the Bible clearly states that Jesus saved everyone, that no-one deserved saving, and everyone is now equal if they accept it.

.......“So he’s for gay marriage, for medicinal marihuana, against the death penalty, against abortion except in medical emergencies for the mother. He’s squeaky clean as far as anyone can find out, the first honest politician since George Washington, if you believe the hype. He calls himself a Republican- _type_ Independent. _”_

 

“He’s a game changer,” Peter agreed. “Both the Liberals and the Republicans have been wooing him since he started to garner admirers. He has a large following that’s always growing, especially an unusually large percentage of younger females and his supporters could sway that swing state and possibly control any election in the near future because of the numbers.

.......“But I can’t imagine just because he looks like this actor…”

 

“It’s true, Peter. You’ve heard of being type-cast? You know that if someone plays a horrible bad guy, and then does it again, one series or film after another, he’d better find himself a Christmas love-story movie with dogs and babies and fast, or he’ll always be playing the bad guy.”

 

“Yeah – have you seen Hopkins’ movie roles?” Mozzie nodded, waving a finger in agreement. “Many are basically ‘Lambs’ knock-offs! RED 2, Fracture, Nixon – dreadful people, but intelligent. Well – not Nixon, politician, but…and the guy is a genius actor. He has managed to do it all – but many people still shudder when they hear his voice!”

 

“Peter, some actors do the same character over and over…that’s how the public and casting people see them. It’s the same sort of thing – prejudice.”

 

“Yeah, I get that. I had a dog once, had been mistreated by a farmer who always wore boots and hats. That dog hated anyone wearing boots and a hat!” Peter agreed.

 

"Same thing. People start disliking Stone because they dislike the character in the show because they look like the same guy! Therefore untrustworthy,"  Neal nodded.

 

“It was when Neal asked me to find a motive – I started looking for other polarised opinions that fitted those of the TV show – and he popped up. The changes in opinion about him, the divisiveness start near the same time those changes on the show do.”

 

“They chose the actor to play this part to set Stone up?”

 

“It’s actually very clever and subtle…hard to prove without running lots of numbers,” Mozzie agreed. “Possibly they just noticed the likeness from certain angles and ran with the plan. But if the public can be this easily manipulated, it’s the thin edge of the wedge.”

 

“I’ll get our best accountants onto it. They’ll figure it out. It’s not a jury case, we’ll never have to show this to twelve Ordinary Joes – they hate trials that rest on this kind of thing.

         “Mozzie, this is good work. Can I take your supporting documents and graphs and everything?”

 

“Pleasure, Suit…On one condition.”

 

“What!” Peter’s voice was immediately angry, and Neal could see terms like ‘obstruction’ leaping to his lips.

 

“You make sure Neal gets to any exhibits around this lovely metropolis that he really wants to get to.”

 

Peter muttered. Then he said, “I’ll do what I can, Haversham.”

 

“Oh, no. No, no, no - and no. Your guys can start from scratch, just as I did, you know, if you explain all this to them…” Mozzie rocked back and forth on his heels, very pleased with himself.

 

“All right!” Peter snapped, then grinned despite himself. “One outing every three months.”

 

“Twice a week.”

 

“You know that’s not going to fly!”

 

“And you know I’m not going to agree to one every three months, so stop wasting my time!”

 

“Will one a month do you, Joe Halderman?”

 

“Of Neal's own choosing, an average of at least one a month. And this isn’t blackmail, I am holding nothing over you, Suit – though I think you’ll look pretty silly coming in with the story and none of the lovely graphics,” Mozzie grinned, “and telling the poor bean-counters to start from scratch!”

 

“It took Mozzie months, Peter,” Neal agreed, “and he’s brilliant.”

 

“Did you tell him to go with the exhibition hustle?” Peter asked his pet CI, half-annoyed, half amused.

 

“I did not. All his own doing.”

 

They packed up the information, took it to Peter’s Taurus and Peter reached out to shake Mozzie’s hand. “If we can prove this, it’s quite a coup!”

 

“Let’s not get too chummy. Even wearing gloves.”

 

“Are you telling me there are no fingerprints on all these documents and papers, no fibres, no DNA?” Peter demanded, a little offended. It wasn’t as though he was Typhoid Peter!

 

“Test them all, at your pleasure.”

 

“Don’t waste your time, Peter,” Neal told him. “Trust me, he burnt all his notes and working documents.”

 

 

 

 

It took a good while, but eventually Peter asked Neal to get Mozzie to come for a glass of wine at June’s.

 

“It was all correct?” Neal demanded. Mozzie didn’t have to ask, but poured himself a glass of good Shiraz, leaving Burke’s offering for Burke. He probably actually liked wine younger than the flowers he brought for June! Probably thought it was ‘fresh’.

 

“It was splendid! The forensic guys ate it up! They got as excited as I did when I saw my first T. Rex skeleton!

         “The main guys are clamming up, but they know they’re busted. We broke the nerd – the one who wrote all the algorithms and whatever stuff. He says he just thought he was working to get the show off the air and get someone else’s on in its spot! But his testimony will get us the others.”

 

“And Stone? How will they get his numbers to normalise?” Neal asked.

 

“We know which of his constituents were targeted, so he can spend a little money and do some damage control. As you say, Neal, go and kiss some babies, be a judge at some dog show for children…

.......“He is very, very grateful and wants to make a public announcement about what happened and to thank all of us – that’s us three especially – in public.”

 

Peter nearly burst out laughing at the way both Neal and Mozzie’s faces changed.

 

“Thank you, no, Suit,” Mozzie spoke for both of them. “You know how I feel about FBI agents…well that goes double for political suits!”

 

“Never mind. I shall tell him that we keep our CI’s out of the spotlight as they do so much undercover work for us…and I’ll let Reece go and get the award.

.......“So why give me all the ammunition to help this ‘political suit’, Moz?” Peter asked, sincerely interested.

 

“Because…because, Suit, this country was founded on good principles. I know you don’t agree, but to me we have wandered far from that ideal…but there is still hope if we all try and get it back there. I doubt this guy is good or honourable – he’s a lawyer and a politician after all! – but if we let the system get further and further off the rails there will be a point of no return.”

 

“Thank you, Moz. The high-ups in the Bureau are very pleased with me for this…”

 

“And you can pay us back by keeping your word and giving Neal some freedom, Suit.”

 

“I’ll do that, Moz.”

 

“You’d better, Suit.”

 

“Is that a threat, Haversham?”

 

“I told you I wasn’t holding anything over you. And I won’t, if you keep your word.”

 

Mozzie was smiling pleasantly, and Peter just gave him an uncertain look and said, “I’d better get back to El! Thanks again!”

 

He left and Neal chuckled. “How can you so easily unsettle someone with that amount of power behind him?”

 

“Innuendo. Which means, dear Neal, that he _has_ something to hide!”

 

“Leave the poor man alone, Moz!”

 

“Oh, I will, if he leaves me alone and keeps his end of the bargain!

         “And you’ll be interested to know the outcome of the test run.”

 

“What?”

 

“The actual TV show. It got cancelled.”

 

“Oh, that’s not right! All’s fair in love and politics, I assume, but sabotaging people’s lives, that’s not good.”

 

“Happy ending. The fans – even the ones who didn’t like the actor who suffered literal character assassination – lobbied and got a short season to finish off the story.”

 

“So they didn’t really dislike the actor then?”

 

“Oh, yeah, hated him at the end of Season 5. But the script-writers or whatever they’re called wrote the final season to make him more loveable but, sadly for him, no less stupid. But then, he did agree to play a _suit.”_

 

“I’ll bet he wasn’t so stupid that he didn’t capture and incarcerate the criminals! They never allow that!”

 

“They did! The criminals got away with lots of cash and lived happily ever after.”

 

“Can’t be a network show. And the agent?”

 

“Had a baby – yes, seriously, just as in so-called real life they gave him a baby and a dog to clear his good name! - and he let his career go to hell so he could be an involved dad.”

 

Neal made a face. “That’s a little …fluffy…do they call it?”

 

“It’s so he’ll leave the criminals alone.”

 

“Oh. Okay, then I can live with that. I must watch this sometime.”

 

“I have it all on flash drives.”

 

“Can’t be worse than Tiles of Fire!”

 

“Don’t be so _judgemental_ , Neal! More wine?”

 

 

 

 

_The End...  
_

 

And of course I'd like comments...anyone who got this far! I so enjoyed writing this! :D

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't resist this gorgeous pup. Credit to:
> 
> http://www.pets4homes.co.uk/images/classifieds/2013/06/12/330501/large/british-bulldog-x-shar-pei-51b874d2e5786.jpg


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